I must have
seen this movie – Woody’s first directional effort - in the early 1980s, when Woody had become a
household name in intellectual circles. We were all intellectuals, at least we
thought we were, so we all went to see his movies, old and new.
Apparently
Woody had wanted Jerry Lewis to direct, but when this didn’t work out, he
decided to do it all by himself. It's nevertheless clear that Jerry Lewis was
one of his major sources of inspiration, along with Charles Chaplin and (so he has pointed out repeatedly) Bob Hope. But the so-called mockumentary style - mixing stock material with fake
interviews and using a voice-over to connect the various vignettes - is
entirely his own. It's a concept that he would use more often in the course of
his career.
Woody is
Virgil Starkwell, a bespectacled Jewish boy who is constantly bullied by kids from
the neighborhood, who are bigger and stronger. As an adult, he makes himself a
name as the most inept criminal in recent memory, whose robberies inevitably
end in failure (and he behind bars). The police and even judges keep crashing
his spectacles, like the bullies from his neighborhood.
The
mockumentary style serves the material rather well, even if Woody keeps cramming too many jokes
in those voice-overs. Thee crossfire of visual and verbal jokes will no doubt
overstretch some viewers' attention span. As for the jokes: some work, others
don't, the worst are occasionally horrendous, but the better ones are often
hilarious and the most memorable joke of the entire movie, the bank robbery
that goes wrong because he misspelled the word 'gun' in his threatening note (What's a gub?),
is brilliant. Only problem: it goes on too long.
Woody still
had to learn a few things, but, as said, Take the Money and Run is often very
funny and many fans think it's the best movie of his early days as a film
maker.
1969 - Dir: Woody Allen - Screenplay: Woody Allen, Mickey Rose - Cast: Woody Allen, Janet Margolin, Marcel Hillaire, Jacquelyn Hyde, Ethel Sokolow, Dan Frazer, Henry Leff, Louise Lasser - Music: Marvin Hamlisch
